Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Where Does Your Silence Live?

When I give Reiki sessions, one of the areas most frequently blocked or restricted in my clients is the throat, or Fifth Chakra. This throat chakra extends from your larynx to your clavicle bones and its energetic or metaphorical meaning has to do with communication, expression, and speaking your truth. No wonder this chakra is so frequently restricted. How often to we hold our feelings and thoughts deep inside, never letting them out to see the light of day? How often do we hold our words in tight because we feel uncertain or unsafe?

In my art blog, Quiet Girl Gallery, I have included a few lines from one of my poems which speaks to this silence. It reads, "Deep in the pit of my throat, they cling to the larynx like barnacles...but tonight when I hear them chattering, I feel a build-up of grief for the lives I haven't let them lead."

What words have remained unuttered for you, locked inside so tightly? What do you feel has remained unexpressed for too long?

Try this: Scan your body. Locate the place in your body where your silence lives. For this exercise, what I mean by silence is the place in your body that is the source of your silencing yourself when you know you should speak up and you don’t. Close your eyes and scan your body until you get a “hit,” a feeling or sensation, and then write from that place about the ways in which you silence yourself. This place could be your throat or somewhere else entirely. Is there a particular moment from the past that comes to mind? Imagine that the place of silence is now allowed to speak. What does it have to tell you?

2 comments:

ana
said...

As a sufferer of Hashimoto tiroiditis, I´ve cuestioned myself about what is going wrong there. Now, with my blood tests OK, I find myself being rude and yelling the things I´d kept silent for the sake of others, of my relationships...It´s being tough,sigh.

Thank you for sharing your experience with Hashimoto Thyroiditis and the ways in which you are expressing yourself right now. It can be difficult when suddenly thoughts and feelings once deep inside are starting to emerge. This has happened to me a number of times as I’ve worked through my 5th Chakra issues, and I found that being gentle with myself during these times was very important.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by this throat chakra, there are things you can do to subdue it a bit. Wearing a pale, misty blue around your neck (in the form of a necklace or scarf) may soothe and calm this chakra as you adjust to the feelings that seem to be emerging here. Also, the stones sapphire, aquamarine, and turquoise may calm this area, too.

On a related note, I once met a woman at a conference who had throat cancer. We spoke quite intimately at one point and she expressed quite clearly that she felt that her years of silence in her marriage created an energetic constriction in her throat. As she was being treated for the cancer, and after she left her marriage, she noticed a huge change in her level of expression and communication. She was beginning to understand the power of her own voice and the importance of speaking her truth. She described a sense of freedom that was quite moving for me.

The 5th Chakra is certainly about voice, but “speaking” to a piece of paper through writing or to a canvas via painting may be just as powerful. Perhaps some creative activity might also allow you to speak your truth…